


Sketch

by FarawayVision



Category: OMORI (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, The usual stuff from the game, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29215890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FarawayVision/pseuds/FarawayVision
Summary: Mari suddenly finds herself inhabiting Sunny's sketchbook, two years after her death.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 198





	1. Chapter 1

\---

_sketch (/skeCH/): a rough or unfinished drawing or painting, often made to assist in making a more finished picture._

\---

One night, Mari suddenly found herself standing in a white void.

She looked around. Infinite nothingness stretched out around her, with only a single solid black line marking the horizon. To her side, however, she noticed a giant square hole in the world that resembled a cinema screen, stretching high above her head.

Through it, she could see the bedroom she shared with her brother; its perspective, however, made her feel like she was only a foot or so tall. The effect was reinforced by her brother’s figure taking up most of the viewing space, peering down at her from… somewhere.

The two siblings stared at each other for a few silent moments, both marinating in their shared confusion. Sunny blinked, rubbed his eyes, and continued staring. Then, he pinched his cheek.

Eventually, Mari decided to try to break the silence.

“...Sunny? Is that you?”

\---

Sunny looked down at his sketchbook, and wondered if he’d finally lost it.  
 _Did-- did she just…?_

It had been, so far, a sleepless night for him. He’d spent a few futile hours attempting to retreat into his usual headspace, but eventually gave up and resigned himself to being awake. At first, he vaguely felt like playing blackjack on his monolith of a computer; a few miserably failed rounds quickly squashed that desire.

So, he turned to his sketchbook instead.

This was pretty much the only hobby of his that had survived the fallout of Mari’s death, two years prior. His mother always left a small stash of pencils, pens, paper, and other art supplies in the living room, for him to pick up on occasion when he ventured downstairs; he would pass what little time he spent in-between stretches of sleeping by sketching whatever was on his mind, usually images and figures from his dreams.

Tonight, he’d set himself to work drawing Mari, trying to fill in as many details as he could pull from his mind as accurately as he could.

And then the drawing had turned around and looked at him.

At first, they just stared at each other. He definitely _saw_ her move, but… what? How?  
His mind desperately racked itself for explanations, but all of his reality checks came back positive: he certainly wasn’t dreaming.

Off to one side of the drawing of Mari, letters began to write themselves on the paper, thin black strokes in a hand all too familiar.  
 _“...Sunny? Is that you?”_

And that’s about when Sunny panicked and dived into bed, hiding under a pile of blankets, and repeated to himself _itsnotrealitsnotrealitsnotreal_..

\---

Mari grimaced. She’d spooked Sunny, as expected.  
Nothing to do but wait for him to come back, she supposed…

In the meantime, she looked down at herself.  
She was wearing one of her favorite outfits, black and white with a skirt and a red ribbon. Looking closer, though, there seemed to be a thick, cartoonish outline to everything; furthermore, her clothes lacked any sort of fine texturing. It seemed more reminiscent of her brother’s artwork, though a lot cleaner and more finely-detailed than she remembered.

She looked to her side.  
The words she’d said hung in the air. Quite literally: she noticed her speech floating at about head-height off to her left. The words were written in her exact handwriting, and as she tried to touch them, they faded away into nothing.  
 _Strange._

She experimented a bit. Her words unfolded to her sides, squeezing themselves as best as possible to fit within view of what Mari had quickly come to call the ‘outside’. A loud yell translated into a large scrawl above her head, and a whisper conversely looked like a tiny note. Pauses and stumbling in her speech manifested as ellipses and dashes. When she said her full name, a perfect replica of her signature appeared, to her surprise.

After a while, Mari noticed her brother cautiously creep back into view.  
“...Mari? Is… it really you?” he asked.

She grinned. Confusing situation or not, at least Sunny was here.  
“Yep! I’m not really sure what’s going on… but I’m here!”

Sunny’s eyes widened as he read through her words. Mari noticed that he looked… frightened, for some reason?

“Hm? What’s wrong, Sunny? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”


	2. Chapter 2

Sunny panicked internally. If he really wasn’t dreaming or seeing things, then… somehow, Mari’s spirit had somehow possessed his sketchbook.

The implications terrified him. Did she remember dying? Had she been watching from beyond the grave when he and Basil hung her body? Had she appeared before any of their other friends?

Did she hate Sunny for what he’d done to her?

He took a breath, forced himself to stop, and collected his thoughts.  
“U-Uhm, Mari? What… do you remember? L-Last, I mean,” he stammered.

\---

Mari closed her eyes and tried to remember, her pensive expression growing more and more troubled as she sorted through her memories.

“I remember...” she started. “...I remember the two of us arguing.”

She looked away uncomfortably.

“You’d thrown your violin down the stairs, right? And I’d gotten so furious over it, since it was the night of the recital...”

Her face clouded over with remorse, at that. She looked back at Sunny.

“I said some really unkind things, back then. I was just so frustrated, since we’d put so much effort into getting everything _perfect_ , and we were _so close_ , and--

She paused for a moment.

“...but, I guess I wasn’t really thinking of you at all, huh, Sunny? I was putting so much pressure on you, and even though you were working so hard, I just blew it off… I’m so sorry. I just...

She shook her head.

“A-Anyway, we’d gotten into an argument, right? And then you tried walking away, but I got in front of you, and then--”

She frowned, and looked down again. Things had started moving quickly, then; everything was a bit confusing.

“--and then you tried to push past me, right? And I’d lost my balance on the step, and...”

Her eyes widened.

“I was falling. Then there was a sharp pain in my head and-- and then nothing.  
“Wait. Did I… did I _die?_ ” she realized.

Mari looked up, and tried to meet Sunny’s eyes. He was frozen in his seat, curled up in a ball, arms crossed over his legs. He quivered lightly, hands shaking where they rested on his knees. His eyes seemed to stare _through_ the paper.

“S-Sunny? What _happened?_ ” she asked.

His answer came as a faint whisper.  
_“I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry...”_

Mari looked down at her hands. She didn’t _feel_ very dead, but… what was she now, a ghost? 

Mari could hardly bear to think about what she’d feel if Sunny ever died… but just from how Sunny looked, she could tell that he’d taken things far, _far_ worse.

 _Did he blame himself for everything?_ _God, does he think I_ hate him _somehow?_

A pit formed in the bottom of her stomach.  
How could she even start fixing this?

“Sunny, it… it’s okay. It was an accident. I mean, it-- it could have happened to either of us, right? It was just a mistake.”

She could feel her voice becoming more desperate as she kept on.

“I don’t hate you, or anything like that… I could _never_ do that.  
“What happened to you? Please, _say something_ …!” she begged.

Tears welled in the corners of Sunny’s eyes as he read her words.

“A-After, erm,” he started, briefly pausing to clear his throat, “after I pushed you… Basil and I were terrified. We didn’t know what to do. We were afraid about what would happen to me. No one would believe us if we’d said it was an accident.”

Sunny shivered violently.

“So Basil came up with an idea. We’d pretend that… that you’d committed suicide instead.”

He gulped, his voice fracturing as he continued.

“We-- we hanged… we hanged your body out in the backyard. W-With a jump rope. I don’t know how, Basil did most of it, tying the noose and pulling the rope and-- and everything, but it worked and it was such a stupid, _stupid_ lie and I-- I don’t know what I can do to fix anything anymore because everyone will _hate me for it_ and…”

Mari’s mind, already going a hundred miles a minute, descended into complete chaos.

 _What? But... but, why would they even think that… How did they even come up with that? Why-- how did_ **_Basil_ ** _come up with that? Why does Basil know how to tie a noose? He is-- was?-- twelve! Why didn’t Sunny say anything? How did no one notice? Did they not look at-- at my body? Were they just going along with it?_

_Have they been keeping this secret the whole time? How?_

“What the _hell?_ ” she muttered.  
In response, Sunny flinched, shrinking even further into himself.

Mari winced; she’d let that slip on accident. She waved the words beside her away.

“I-- Sorry. Just… what made you even _think_ that would be a good idea? And how did you manage to do all of that? You were _twelve!_ Twelve-year-olds shouldn’t know how to tie nooses, or fake suicides, or… Did you lie to the _police?!_ How did...”

She stopped herself. She took a breath and focused, pacing her thoughts. 

_Okay. I’m getting nowhere fast. I need to focus on the important things first.  
_ _Sunny and Basil must be carrying so much guilt and fear, right now, because of… all of this._

She closed her eyes, thinking things through.

“I’m really sorry for making you talk more, Sunny, but what happened after that? How long has it been since then? How did everyone take it?”

At that, Sunny turned his gaze down, a bit.

“...Dunno. Haven’t seen them,” he whispered.

Mari’s thoughts screeched to a halt, stunned by the unexpected response.  
“What? What do you mean, you haven’t seen them?”

Sunny shifted uncomfortably.  
“I… haven’t gone outside. In a while.”

Mari’s insides twisted yet again.  
“H-How long, exactly?”

“...two years.”


End file.
